Current mood:

depressed

Fic: "Sleep, Perchance...", R (L/V, ensemble)
This fic has so many moods and personalities it makes Sybil dizzy. Seriously. It goes from disturbing, to depressing, to amusing, and then back to disturbing and depressing and ending with hopeful at such speed that Yo-Yos are jealous.

Written for the Veronica Mars General Ficathon...

Title: Sleep, Perchance...
Author: Jacqui wily_one24
Characters/Pairings: Logan/Veronica, some brief mentions of Duncan/Veronica.
Disclaimer: They're so not mine, this is probably why.
Wordcount: 22, 800-ish (!!! Yeah, I *know*).
Rating: Hard R, disturbing themes and language to make sailors blush.
Warnings: Brief implied non con, scenes of Shelley's party and all that implies (but it's over soon). Also? I don't like Duncan and I'm not anywhere near forgiving in my characterisation.
Spoilers: Set pre-series, but references spoilers for the entire first season.



Two requests: smut and Love
Two restrictions: no slash no PWP

Okay, so... here's the thing: it's more like "pre-LoVe" and very brief "almost dream smut", but points for trying, right? And, hey, no PWP and no slash to be found. Really.

A/N: The subheadings of this fic are quite blatantly stolen from The Beauty Trilogy. Written by A.N. Roquelaure (roughly translated meaning "Anne under a quilt", thank you Anne Rice). The titles: "The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty", "Beauty's Punishment" and "Beauty's Release", as well as the first chapter of this fic are about the only resemblance to the orginal books. I have no idea where and/or why I translated it to Veronica Mars. It just kinda fit. In my head, which we know is a scary place.

Onto the fic!!!

*~*~*~*

*~*~*~*

Duncan Kane believes in fairy tales.

All of them.

The soft, spun sugar, and chocolate-coated dreams that Disney, Little Golden Books and his nannies spouted with over enthusiasm, emphasis on the happily ever after following the good, the virtuous, honest and fair. Even the darker ones, thistle heavy and danger rampant, dripping with symbolism, blood and sex, fed to him in small, tantalizing doses by the Brothers Grimm and Lilly.

He believes in enchanted castles and realms laid waste to spells of grief and despair, the kingdom fallen into inescapable paths of lethargy and apathy. He believes that they’re all waiting, silently sighing into their hands, just waiting for someone to break the spell.

They’ve been waiting since October 3rd, since Lilly stopped.

He believes that there’s one great, grand action to sweep it all away, to bring back the color and the glory, one noble act that will bring its own reward. That, somewhere, there’s a fairy godmother or guardian angel, watching with benevolent eyes and biding her time until all the pieces are right where she wants them. Until he’s collected enough pumpkins and mice and swords, slayed enough dragons, rescued enough damsels.

Only, he hasn’t exactly been collecting anything other than a tongue and brain equally fuzzy with medication.

She’s lying on the bed when he finds her and there’s nothing more symbolic than a sleeping girl in a white dress, pure and robbed of life, limbs heavy with the same curse that has fallen over everything. Her face slack and carefree, careless, as she slumbers. She’s everything: the innocence, the loss, the temptation, the danger, the knowledge and the fall.

Duncan believes in fairy tales and he knows how to wake the sleeping princess.

He leans over her, mouth to mouth, just breathing her air for a second, her succulent little lips open and slightly dry, almost cracked with it. He shouldn’t, he knows it in the back of his brain, but he can’t help himself.

His tongue flicks out and drags on the edges of her dry mouth.

Her hair is soft and golden, spun like the sugar of the tales; thin and silken as he lifts it between his fingers, inspect it against the whorls of his fingerprints. Her breath smells like sweet cola and sticky rum, her neck smells like fruity teen perfume and salt, and her eyes are wide, bottomless pools of blue. His hand cups the side of her face when he finally leans in, mouth to mouth, a slight moan sliding against her.

She doesn’t wake up when he leans back to blink at her.

“I miss you.” He says it like an apology, like he’s been waiting months to say it. “Baby, I miss you so much.”

There’s a wrinkle between her brows, two soft, little lines that pucker between her eyes and he smiles thickly at it. She’s beautiful, even and especially in sleep. He leans down to kiss it, lips pursed, pressing chastely against the heated skin.

Her eyelashes flutter against the skin of his jaw.

It’s like a tease. Like a million other times when she looked at him with her lips quirked up in a little smile and a glimmer in her eyes. He’s kissed her mouth before, lots of times, felt the soft skin at the edges of her hips, and knows what it’s like to drive whimpers and moans from the back of her throat.

He scoops her up, like she weighs nothing, like it’s natural for her head to flop back down as his hands cup her shoulders, her neck stretched out before him.

There’s a sound, a half garbled scratching echoing out from the back of her throat and his eyes look down, study the shape of it. He lingers over the lines of her tendons, the faint pulse he can see beating underneath the skin, and he knows what she’s trying to say.

She misses him, too.

And this is what he’s missed; this is what they’ve been denying him all these months, what they’ve been telling him he cannot and should not have. She’s too sweet and simple, so much of her is what he aches to have again. She’s laughter and she’s the roll of Lilly’s eyes and the slick buzz of champagne bubbling up his nostrils, the slide of pastel pink satin up a silky thigh in the back of a limo.

He kisses her throat, open mouthed and hot, tongue pressing into her salt slick skin as his hands pull her closer, lift her body up to his.

“…uhleeeeeee…”

She’s soft and pliant as he lowers her back down to the pillow, following her. His shoes clunk lightly on the floor when he kicks them off and climbs up over her, hands on either side of her head and knees on either side of her thighs.

“Yeah, baby.” He whispers it into her ear. “I’m here.”

His lungs fill with the scent of her as he buries his face into the crook of her neck, nuzzling her, taking the time to flood his cells with the memory of her. Then he kisses down the side of her neck and around to the indentation where her collarbones meet as his hands run up her arms, bare skin tantalizing and so soft.

“Veronica.” He claws at the strap of her dress, thin and fragile and easily broken as he bares her left breast. “God, Veronica.”

He sucks her flesh; plump and heavy as he brings his right hand down to push the nipple up to his mouth, teasing it, until it begins to swell under his tongue. Nuzzling, suckling, his left hand combs through her hair, running through it, fingers twisting through the strands and pulling slightly.

She tries to moan again.

Her waist is tiny and familiar in his larger hand; he still knows this flesh, this girl. His fingers know how to curl over the edges of bone that stretch the skin there, push into the swell of her ass as he dips one knee between her legs.

“I love you.” It’s a whisper, curled into the peak of her nipple as his fingers twist in the white cotton. “I always have.”

Slowly, agonizingly, the twists of his fingers drag the skirt of her dress up. He can feel the cool skin of her thighs against his as he quickly pushes his own pants down. She’s perfect, of course, slim legs and soft, ivory skin.

A hand comes up and weakly bats at his shoulder. He tells himself it’s a caress and not a push.

He’s frantic in his kisses, hot and wet on her breasts and shoulders and neck, and his hands drag the only barrier they have left down her legs. Twisted white cotton that catches on her knees. This is how it was always meant to be.

“…uhleeeee…”

“I’m here, baby.” He’s hard and tense and solid between her legs, heart pounding harder than he can ever remember. “I’m here.”

“…leeeaase…” A long, low, soft groan. “Noooooooooooooooo.”

And she’s hot and tight and almost wet as he pushes in.

---

He watches her.

He can’t help himself. His eyes follow her down the hall, greedy in their need. She’s tiny, but she looms over everyone, everything else. She’s harder now, all sharp edges and brittle tongue, flashing eyes and heated anger.

But he remembers when she was soft and open and all his.

When he walks down the hall he sees two boys crowded around her locker, the smell of paint acrid in the air and a W-H-O scrawled over the bright yellow. They freeze and look at him, neither of them moving as he walks right by, never blinking. A Mexican standoff. There’s a nervous sort of laughter that echoes down the empty hall when he turns the corner.

He knows what they’re saying about her, he knows what they’re doing, and everyone knows not to go overboard when he’s there. But he doesn’t stop it.

Doesn’t need or even want to, not when it’s working in his favor.

Duncan is a Kane, he comes from one of the finest families in Neptune, he’s expected to make big things out of his life, and they’re already grooming him for politics. The Kane Heir will make a fine Senator. That’s what he’s heard all his life.

The Kane Heir is not meant to think about his sister half naked and spread for him.

And only him.

In his dreams, late at night, where no one else can see and demean and medicate her out of his system, he thinks about Veronica, whispers her name into his pillow, and the two words that echo most are Lover and Sister, again and again, until they bleed into each other. Loversister, loversister, loversister. They might be wrong, they might be horrid, ugly words when pushed together like that, but they sound familiar and comforting to him.

But he has no misconceptions about how they’ll sound streaming from anyone else’s mouth, vicious and tainted with disgust.

Sisterlover!

So he says nothing and he lets the world tear her down, because she’s pushed outside and away and always off limits to anyone. And in some small way, that makes her his, always his, and she’ll never be anyone else’s.

It’s the only safe way.

He thinks, sometimes, that she understands. She’s stronger than everyone knows, she rises out of the worst of it seemingly unscathed and, every now and again, she smiles across the hall at him. He sees her in those moments, bright eager eyes and luscious curving mouth, all for him.

And then he speeds into the bathroom to frantically beat off before anyone notices his raging hard on.

Duncan Kane believes in fairy tales.

---

---

*~*~*~*

*~*~*~*

Veronica Mars doesn’t believe in happy endings; she used to, once upon a time, but not anymore.

Happy endings have their brains splattered all over imported pool tiles, happy endings are roofied and wake up alone with blood coating the insides of their thighs, happiness flees out of town leaving behind rasping fumes of scotch.

People who believe in happy endings deserve whatever comes their way.

That’s a sentiment she can get behind as she knocks on the door. The sniggers behind hands and the outright jeers in her face had told her all she needed to know before she got to her locker. The WHORE splashed over it didn’t surprise her, but she’s still slightly impressed by the careful lettering.

It’s nice to know they’re making an effort, after all.

“Mister Clemmons?” She keeps her voice steady and even as she answers his polite call to enter the room. “I need access to the janitor’s closet.”

The look he gives her is weary and sympathetic.

“Again, Veronica?”

She blushes, hot and red all the way to the roots of her hair.

“It’s nothing.” But she doesn’t believe it and neither does he. “Just words. I’ll wash it off.”

“This can’t continue.” These are words he does believe and she doesn’t try to correct him. It can continue, though, she knows it; it hasn’t stopped since it began and there are no signs of it ever ending. “Just tell me who it is.”

He’s tired and concerned, the edges of his voice and eyes tell her that he wants to help. A part of her, deep and hidden, wants to tell him, wants to be able to point the finger at any one given person or group and finally see an end to it.

There are no endings, this she knows.

“I don’t know.” It comes out like a whisper, weaker than she meant it. “I don’t know who.”

Those words are truer than she can stand.

---

It takes her an hour after school before she’s satisfied that the word is gone. From the locker at least, it’s too far ingrained into her mind to wash away with bleach or astringent. She wonders why she bothers, there’ll be something new and different and equally mortifying before she returns in the morning.

She walks through the school with her head held high and this is her downfall. She knows that if she were to crumble, to cry, to show weakness in front of the masses, they would be lenient, their animosity and cruelty sated. But she doesn’t and it makes them double their efforts.

They laugh at her, not bothering to disguise the bitterness of it. And she spends her time trying not to listen too closely, trying not to wonder if each separate laugh is deeper than the others. If one giggle, one guffaw out of the crowd is registering past ‘I laugh because they call you a whore’, a few decibels down to ‘I laugh because I made you one’.

He’s there, he must be.

Her skin shrivels if she thinks about it, sliding over her flesh, crawling until she can barely stand it. In the middle of school sometimes, out of nowhere, she feels eyes and wonders if he’s watching her. If he’s thinking about her and what he did.

Not even the teachers blink anymore when she runs out of class and scurries to the bathroom, splashing water over her face and trying not to throw up.

There’s amusement in their eyes, glittering meanly when she meets them, everywhere she turns. It sends her into downward spirals of questions. Questions about who was there and what they saw, if there was more than one and if she’d been helpless at the hands of many.

She doesn’t bother asking herself if there was someone who might have helped her. Even if such a person existed, no one would have stepped up.

---

Backup barks when she lets herself into the apartment. No matter what happens during the day, she knows that there’s at least one being glad to see her. She ruffles his ears and buries her face into the top of his head, his thick fur smelling like heat and wet dog.

His heart beats hot and fast inside his chest, eager and steady against her fingers splayed across his ribs. She misses the feel of touch.

“C’mon.” She says into his low whine. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Her voice is high and happy, excited at the suggestion, but she knows that he’s not fooled. Her hands are shaking and he pushes his face into hers, nudging and trying to lick at her cheeks. They must smell like salt, sticky with dried tears.

---

She sits alone at lunch.

It’s not as bad as it used to be. She brings her texts and studies, finishes homework she was too exhausted to complete the night before after chasing cheating spouses and lying low lives. Open books and printed words give her an escape she can barely calculate.

Her fingers linger on the soft, crinkled pages of her Calculus book. The edges are stained an ugly brown, thanks to the pudding someone strained through the slats of her locker one day.

She tells herself she likes the scent of chocolate to keep her company.

---

“How was school?”

He doesn’t stop asking.

“Fine.”

She doesn’t stop lying.

The silence that follows stretches the air into uncomfortable as they scratch at their plates with forks, idly lifting limp bits of pasta. This is a man she loves, who loves her, and she would give him everything and anything if she could.

“Veronica.” It’s a low, deep word weighed down by apology and warning and despair. “What happened?”

She looks down at her plate and shakes her head.

“If they…” He sighs, bone weary and resigned. “I think we should look into a new school for you.”

“No.” At this she does raise her head, she looks him straight in the eye and pays him the only homage that means anything anymore. “They’re not going to run me out, Dad, I won’t let them.”

---

The guy at the gas station knows her by sight now.

He smiles as she drives up and comes over to open her door and help her blow up her tires. If anything, she’s become an expert at car maintenance. She doesn’t particularly need help, but she thinks she needs the sentiment.

If he thinks it strange that she keeps three spare tires in her trunk, he never says anything.

---

It’s just lotion.

The words repeat and echo in her brain as she wrinkles her nose. Firm, insistent, she doesn’t give herself any other possibility as she uses the end of a pencil to lift the sagging, limp condoms full of a murky, white liquid.

There’s laughter behind her in the hall, insidious and ever present.

---

She rests her head on her folded arms and closes her eyes.

“I tell thee what, get thee to a church o’Thursday, or never look me in the face…”

After three weeks of silence from everyone around her, Veronica is strung out. She can’t sleep anymore; the longer they leave it the worse it will be. Whatever they have planned, and she knows they have something; it’s going to hurt. She wishes they’d just get it over with.

“And then to have a wretched… oh, um… puling fool…”

Giggles alert her to the danger and she lifts her head to see what’s coming.

“Meg?” Miss Murphy raises her brow across the class. “Is there something wrong?”

Meg’s face is bright red and Veronica frowns.

“I… I can’t finish this passage. There’s something wrong with it.”

Someone sniggers to the left.

“Capulet is merely berating his daughter for not obeying his wishes to marry Paris.” Miss Murphy sighs, taking her glasses off her face and massages the spot between her eyes. “It’s hardly the most explosive scene William Shakespeare ever wrote, we’ve gone over this.”

“But…” Meg flounders.

“Miss Murphy?” Dick’s hand shoots straight up in the air and if that isn’t enough to arouse suspicions, Veronica’s not quite sure what is. “I don’t think Will Shakespeare ever wrote saying Juliet was as slutty as Veronica Mars.”

“What?” But the damage is done and the class erupts into full laughter, even as their teacher tries to quiet them down. “Meg, bring your book up here.”

Casey pipes up, all innocent choirboy expression.

“It’s in all of them, Miss.”

Sure enough, when Veronica’s eyes scan the page in front of her, her name is there, printed like the rest of the page. The book looks as though it hasn’t been altered, not in the slightest, and the verse blends in with all the others.

They all have to surrender their texts to the front of the class.

By the end of the day, the freshman Biology texts, the senior Trig texts, some books from the library on the Civil War, and all the Health class sexual reproduction texts have to be confiscated and replaced. Miss Hauser has to send away for new slides on STDs.

At least Veronica can sleep now.

---

She takes her shoes off at the beach; secure enough in her anonymity to leave them in the sand. Strangers don’t have any reason to take notice of her. It aches a little that she feels safer among people she doesn’t know.

Her ankles push against the give and take of the sand, toes digging into the warm grains as Backup trots along beside her, eagerly chasing a ball and bringing it back. She can feel the grains press deep into aches on the soles of her feet.

A pitbull who sees only two people on a regular basis, her father and her car. These are things that she holds dear. Three things that they can’t take from her, no matter how hard they try. They’ve taken everything else she’s cared about. Lilly’s gone. Her mother is gone. All her friends are gone, even the ones she didn’t particularly like in the first place. Her sense of security and trust has long since vanished.

If she closes her eyes, she can let everything drift away. There’s nothing but the sound of waves crashing on the shore, a child laughing in the distance, gulls cawing above. She’s free behind her eyes, even as her hands clasp her elbows close into her body.

If she closes her eyes, she can remember laughing in a crowd, sharing noodles and egg rolls at the lunch table, automatically included in the game. Secure in the knowledge of a happy home, friends, a boyfriend who loved her, and an eternity of the same stretched out forever.

The thing is, she doesn’t even want that back. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she woke up tomorrow and everyone started smiling again, pretending as if it had never happened. She’s not built that way. And she’s not sure exactly what she wants, what she’d prefer.

Only that, sometimes, when she thinks about the placid, docile, dreamy girl she used to be, she feels sick.

Reality scrapes furrows deep into her skin, but she’s fairly sure she’s better off for it, for the knowledge. She likes the constancy of truth, even if it’s harsh and unforgiving. Truth is fact and fact is solid. There is no argument, no guessing, and no wondering.

She envies the jealous wives, even as she takes photos of their husbands banging the maid or the secretary or whatever cliché half their age takes their fancy. The truth of it must hurt them, but it’s a clean slice. Bam, your husband can’t keep it in his pants. Deal. Move on.

They’re not stuck in this limbo of never knowing.

But she has Backup and she has her father and… And she has a car with a broken windshield.

The cracks that spider web across the glass are milky and almost beautiful in their pattern. There’s a definite center, a point of impact, too large to be an accidental rock or pebble thrown up by a passing blader or cyclist. Her dad is already teetering past the line of believing mishaps to her car are accidental and he’s going to pressure her to move again, to change schools. She’s not sure she has the patience to fight him off anymore.

Her heart sinks heavy in her chest as Backup begins a low growl. She twists his leash around her wrist.

She doesn’t tell anyone, but sometimes she envies Lilly. She thinks maybe Lilly had it right, maybe Lilly knew something the rest of them didn’t. Maybe things would be easier if she got her skull bashed in, if she closed her eyes and never woke up.

It should have been her, Abel.

“Hey Ronnie.”

Her eyes close. She’s taken a lot over the last couple of months, from people she barely cared about, to those she considered her closest friends. She doesn’t think she can take it right now, just not now, not after the day she’s had.

Not from a boy she knows likes cauliflower, but not broccoli.

“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue?”

Maybe if she waits him out, he’ll get tired and just go away. She counts her breath in slow margins, in and out. Backup’s growl turns into a low rumble, steady and warning. With a slight tug on the leash, the sound stops and her throat closes.

He’s patting her dog.

“Hey.” He’s close enough to feel, breath hot on her neck, and she knows she can’t open her eyes. “I’m talking to you.”

She wants to think she’s imagining the threat, wants to think he’s still the boy whose giggles migrate into her own, who makes dirty jokes and funny faces. But he’s not. He hasn’t been that boy for a long time. She knows if she opens her eyes, he’s going to be staring at her with hatred.

Seething with violence.

He’s frightening in his intensity, sometimes, vicious and cruel in ways that steal her breath. His mother used to call her ‘Veronica Dear’ and his sister used to drive them to the mall. And he hates her with such passion now that it’s all too easy to believe he might be capable of rape. Of her rape.

Her teeth bite down hard on her lip to stop the tear that burns just inside of her eyes.

“Let me go.”

He’s not holding onto her, hasn’t even touched her. The great Logan Echolls would never deign to sully himself like that, but that’s not what she means and he knows it. Her plea is broken and heavy with unshed tears, he’d have to be deaf not to know how scared she is right now.

“You need a ride?” It’s a sneer, full of amusement, and they both know he’s not really offering. “Looks like your little matchbox car is out of commission.”

If only she could get back to her apartment, lock her door and breathe. Spend several minutes taking deep lungfuls of air, then maybe she’d be able to regroup, to put on her mask and face him head on. Maybe then she’d be able to match him barb for barb.

She can’t hold it in; it’s too much.

“Why?” It comes out in a broken sob. “Why are you doing this?”

There’s no answer and she didn’t expect one. There’s really nothing to say. Her chest heaves as she tries to pull the sobs back in, but they’re already out there. She’s already given him too much ammunition and this will be fodder for weeks.

She opens her eyes to find him staring at her, mouth gaping wide and something cracking inside his eyes.

And she hates him for it, suddenly; it drives into her like a railroad spike through the eye. She can’t take his offhand pity and regret, this throw away realization that maybe they’ve overstepped their boundaries. He’s going to blink and it’ll disappear and she’ll be left with tatters and spite again.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“Veronica…”

The way he says it is like a plea, like he really means it, voice softened to something she might recognize from months before. She can almost taste it, the tentative branches to friendship and acceptance again. The last few strands of happiness float in front of her eyes like wisps of hair. There, if only she’d reach forward and grasp them.

But she’s already walking away.

And she doesn’t stop.

Veronica Mars doesn’t believe in happy endings, not anymore.

---

---

*~*~*~*

*~*~*~*

Logan Echolls writes his own stories.

He stopped swallowing the pre-made ones a long time ago. All those too neat narratives complete with heroes and damsels and easy conclusions with resolutions that wrap up in two palatable hours or less. He knows better than that.

Sometimes the hero is really the monster, sometimes the damsel is a bitch, and sometimes the background characters deserve more of the spot light than they will ever, ever get. And sometimes the underdog drinks himself into a stupor to forget that he allowed his damsel to be beaten to death.

The house is empty when he gets home and he’s grateful for it.

He can’t stop thinking about that moment on the beach. He’d gone there to do one thing and one thing only: make Veronica Mars’ life hell. It’s certainly something he knows how to do; he’s gotten enough practice at it since Lilly died.

And then she had to go and spoil all his fun by breaking down. It wasn’t even the pathetic, fake tears of someone pretending to be the little girl she never was, had no right to ever be again. Yeah, they’d all seen how much of a heartless bitch she was when she spat all over Lilly’s memory by upholding her father’s claims.

No, she didn’t defend herself. She had to fall apart like she was tired, just tired and broken and about to crack open.

He should be happy. He should have taken out his phone and recorded the moment for prosperity. They’d been knocking her down for months and all of a sudden he had her there, crying and frightened and without any of the smart-ass comments she usually throws back at them.

Dick and Sean could have made merry sport out of that footage.

But he hadn’t. All he saw in that moment was not Veronica Mars, girl pariah and sharp-tongued miscreant, he saw Veronica. Lilly’s friend. Duncan’s ex. Hell, his own friend if he admitted it. Suddenly he’d been full of the strangest urge, an old forgotten possessiveness and protectiveness to his own clan, to route out the source of her troubles and make them disappear.

A highly improbable and impractical urge, considering he was one of the main offenders.

“Fuck.”

He grabs the phone and dials information to get the number he needs. It’s Friday night, no way in hell she’s gonna get anyone out on short notice.

“Yeah, I need a windscreen replaced. Yes, tonight. I’ll pay you double.”

The phone bounces in its cradle when he slams it back down. There’s absolutely no goddamned way he’s turned soft. None at all. There’s no reason for him to be shaking. The problem here is not him, it’s most definitely her.

She went from being Ice Bitch extraordinaire to real actual human being in the flick of an eyelid. And fuck that; fuck it all to hell. He knows what he has to do.

Double his efforts and really bring her down.

---

She has her head buried in her locker on Monday and doesn’t even notice him walking right up to her. He leans his shoulder against the row of lockers next to hers, crosses one ankle over the other and waits. She doesn’t give any kind of sign that she’s noticed him.

And she’s taking an awfully long time to grab a few books.

Eventually, she sighs.

“I know you’re there.”

It makes him chuckle.

“Yeah, I know I’m here, too. Wow, no wonder you make the big bucks as a P.I. huh?”

Her fingers wrap around the edge of the door and he sees, with a touch of surprise, that they’re painted purple. He tries to blink that off as her head appears amid the crisp sound of metal closing on metal.

“What do you want, Logan?”

She sounds bored, exasperated, but the closer he looks, the more he sees her shoulders are tense and she’s hugging her Biology book close to her chest. They’re facing each other, standing next to the lockers, and to anyone else it would look as though they were having a simple conversation.

“See.” He brings his hand up to play with the combination lock in front of him. “You ran out on me so fast the other night.”

The flicker of confusion that passes over her face makes him tingle.

“Why?” Her eyebrows rise. “Did you need me there to vandalize another car?”

“I didn’t…” But he stops, he doesn’t care what she thinks and, really, it works more in his favor if she thinks he did it, anyway. “Now, now, Ronnie, what if I just wanted to talk to you?”

She smiles and gives a little gasp.

“Wow.” It’s a teasing, breathy giggle before her face and eyes turn stony. “You wouldn’t think I’d miss the flying pigs, would you? I have things to do.”

He’s left feeling vaguely unsatisfied as she turns to go, walking a few steps before his hand reaches out and captures her arm, spinning her around again. Her face is blanked out in surprise, but her eyes show a flicker of fear and he uses that, squeezes his fingers tightly on the muscles of her arm.

“I’m still talking to you.”

She gives a hard tug, but he doesn’t let go and her hand balls into a little fist.

“What are you…?” Her voice trails off as she looks to the left.

People are starting to take notice; he can hear the voices whispering.

“I’m being civil and you’re being a bitch. You used to be nice.”

Her mouth opens, like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t.

“Hey, would it make it easier if I paid you? I hear that sort of thing makes you real…” His eyes travel down her body and back up again. “… friendly. What’s your going rate nowadays, anyway?”

Her arm jerks violently out of his and her face hardens even further.

“Screw you, Logan."

The laughter in the hall is infectious and he has to grin.

---

Some people have absolutely no class.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The kid isn’t even in their grade, Logan can barely think of a name when he looks up. “Go find some second hand porn before I kick your ass.”

John? George? Whoever he is, the kid frowns, but takes his cue and flees.

He might not be Miss Marple, not by a long shot, but he knows some rules of polite society. You don’t get drunk before the first hour has passed at a party, you don’t ogle or admit to ogling your friend’s mother, sister or cousin unless there’s a ‘step’ in front of the title, you don’t wear white after Labor Day.

And, goddammit, you certainly don’t vandalize a car twice in the same week. It shows a serious lack of imagination.

Logan looks down at the tire, quickly losing air and flattening in front of his eyes.

“Nice.” The voice sounds almost cheerily detached behind him. “Your handiwork, I presume?”

“What?” He spins, already showing too much guilt. “I didn’t… that’s not…”

“Save it. I don’t care.” Veronica hefts her bag into the trunk and pulls out a jack. Her movements are easy and practiced. “I have other things to do, so you can run along now.”

She flicks her wrists in an annoying ‘scat’ gesture that makes him want to get right up in her space and make her cringe like she did before. And something is definitely wrong if he can’t come up with something to make her at least blush.

“Don’t you mean ‘other people' to do?”

Oh, lame.

She only rolls her eyes as she crouches down next to the deflated tire, fingers pressing into the rubber to test the damage.

Fuck, he’s seriously off his game.

---

It’s dark and it’s late and he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing parked on a side street in what could only aspire to be called the bad side of town. His phone flicks open easily and he punches in the numbers jauntily.

“Hello? Yes, I’d like to report a disturbance. There’s someone outside my house taking photographs.”

The officer on the phone takes down the address as he gives it and Logan snaps his phone shut and leans his head back on the seat and waits. Ten minutes later a patrol car drives up with its lights flashing.

Logan grins as he watches the officer slap the cuffs on her wrists. He grins even wider when her head spins around and spots his car. Large, yellow Xterras aren’t exactly covert and he thinks he can hear her growl even this far back.

He hopes she can see his jaunty wave.

---

Bears are just no fun unless you poke them.

Repeatedly.

He walks into the station whistling.

“Evening officer.”

The uniformed deputy at the desk barely glances up at him before gesturing towards a wooden seat, obviously telling him to wait his turn. He’s more interested in the teeny, furious creature that’s glaring at him. If looks could kill, he’d be long gone.

He timed it wonderfully, it seems. They haven’t had time to process her yet, she’s sitting awkwardly on another wooden bench, her hands firmly behind her back.

“Do you know what you did?” She hisses as soon as she thinks no one can hear them. “You have no clue…”

“What?” He lets his lip curl up. “Your john gonna have to find another date?”

She bites her bottom lip, obviously wanting to say something. This? He can take. When she fights back, he can fight harder and there’s less to be guilty about. Not that he’s guilty. Not him. Whatever she’s going to come up with, it’ll be a whole lot better than…

“My hair.”

What?

“What?” He feels his footing slip just a little. “Did you sniff too hard at the paint can? What are you talking about?”

Her eyes roll again, as if she’s talking to the dimmest child on the short bus.

“My hair.” Her eyes stretch out, as if trying to pass on a message all their own, even as her voice lowers to a whisper. “Undo my pigtail.”

“You really have lost it, Mars.”

She stomps her foot and damn if it isn’t cute.

“You owe me, Logan.” It’s a hiss. “I know you’re the one who got me in here.”

It’s just not sporting if he doesn’t give her a ‘well duh’ look of his own. Apparently he’s not sitting by himself on that short bus. Why the hell else would he be there to gloat? Somehow, and he’s not sure how, he finds himself leaning forward to do exactly what she says.

Her eyes are glued to the deputy running up paper work as he reaches around her face and fumbles with the tie. He tries not to notice that her hair is soft and cool from the night air, that his knee is now touching hers and her breath ghosts out onto his wrists.

“Hey!” His fingers close on a small metal object. “What’s…?”

“It’s the memory stick.” She shushes him. “To my camera. If they find that, they’ll take it as evidence. Give it to my dad.”

And he’s going to what? Lock step and ask how high when she suddenly tells him to jump?

“When do I take orders from…?”

“Get away from me!” Her face contorts with anger and she actually kicks him in the shins. “Do I look like I’m in the mood for your shit right now?”

“Huh?” Automatically, he jumps back. “I didn’t…”

“Hey kid.” The deputy looms over him and all becomes clear. “She’s in custody right now. This isn’t playgroup. What did you need?”

His fingers curl automatically around the stick and he shrugs as he pulls his hands back, shoving them into his pockets.

“Nothing. Not a thing.”

The officer snarls.

“Then get out before I arrest you, too.”

---

She misses school the next day, but she’s there on the Wednesday.

Waiting for him at his locker.

Her face is calm and casual, too perky for so early in the day, and she leans against the bank of lockers as if she’s got no cares in the world. The closer he gets, the brighter her expression becomes, and she opens her hand, palm upwards, with an expectant expression on her face.

“What?”

“My memory stick.” She provides, pleasant and cheerful, as if he doesn’t already know what she’s talking about and she shouldn’t expect him to. “I told you to give it to my dad.”

“Yeah, well.” A casual shrug. “It’s not like I talk to him that much, is it?”

She gives him an indifferent shrug and keeps her hand stretched out. He sighs as he reaches into his pocket and pulls it out, placing it in the middle of her palm delicately, as if it’s some prize to be treasured. Her head bobs in a quick nod of thanks and she spins around, ready to walk away.

“So, Mr. Jones likes underage girls, huh?”

The speed with which she spins back must leave her dizzy.

“You looked at them? Logan!” Her face is bright red and flustered. “That’s sensitive case information!”

“I must have missed that day in Super Spy School.” He whispers dramatically. “Can I keep my decoder ring?”

Her mouth snaps shut so fast even he grimaces for her.

“You… I…” There’s a wrinkle between her brow as she struggles to find the words and he can’t help but smile a little at it. “You know what, Logan? Just forget it. Leave me alone.”

He watches her storm off, streaming down the hall in a tizzy and smiles to himself, wondering how long until she checks the files and finds the most recent additions he left for her.

---

Twenty four hours, it seems, as he walks into school the next day to find poster-sized enlargements of his ass plastered to the walls.

“Dude!”

Dick slaps him on the back and Logan preens.

“I think she got my best angle, don’t you?”

---

She sits alone at lunch.

He’s never really noticed it before, other than to make snide comments to everyone else, but he watches her across the quad now, head bowed over a book, hand idly scratching a pen across a notepad. The urge to know what she’s writing is sudden and confusing.

Especially given she’s taking her information straight from a class text and that his eyes would roll back into his head from boredom were he to actually bother going over there to see. He just has the slightest inkling that even if she’s copying out the phone book, it’s going to be a whole lot more interesting than the current debate of Johnny Depp versus Orlando fucking Bloom.

The high screech of Pam’s voice is like nails on a blackboard.

He tries to remember who she sits with and comes up empty. It makes him wonder who she shares those insipidly girly moments with. And he knows there has to be many, because fuck if he didn’t have to sit through hours of pointless back and forth between her and Lilly discussing nail polish and the Spice Girls and pastel crayon over goddamned summer fruits as color themes.

Nothing about that girl, soft pinks and fuzzy curves, remains in the sharply angled figure defiantly existing in the middle of their lunch hour. Suddenly he finds his eyes sliding down over her legs, encased in a tight, short skirt and the butchiest of butch boots known to man.

Maybe she left the girly things buried with her false loyalty back in Lilly’s coffin.

“Hey.” A hand lands on his wrist and he turns to face Duncan’s eyes watching him. “What’s wrong with you, man?”

He doesn’t know why he feels guilty.

“Nothing.” He just knows he’s sick of it as he slowly takes his hand away. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Duncan leans forward, close enough so that the rest of the table doesn’t hear their words, and there’s a predatory look in his eyes.

“You keep watching her.”

There’s not even an inkling of a doubt who Duncan’s talking about and it confuses him. This is a man who hasn’t shown one iota of concern for Veronica since before Lilly died, Logan had immediately jumped on Duncan’s side then without asking why.

“And?” It’s a casual shrug. “So what if I do? I wouldn’t be the only one.”

His voice is low and suggestive and nowhere near the worst they’ve ever said about her. The entire table stops talking and watches them out of curiosity. Duncan’s eyes narrow, flashing an immediate warning, and the corners of his mouth tighten as he grabs Logan’s hand back.

“Leave her alone.”

Logan laughs, easy and sure.

“So what? The entire football team can have her on her knees at half time and I can’t even glance at her during lunch?” A sneer tumbles over his lips and it makes him vaguely ill. “Fuck that, man.”

It’s small and barely worth taking note, but Logan knows Duncan, knows him better than anyone living. He feels the shake of Duncan’s grip and sees the flicker of anger behind his eyes. Logan might spend his time cruising along, but he’s not stupid and he’s well aware of the veneer than Duncan has been putting forward.

This is the first true emotion that he’s shown in months.

A second later, it’s gone, flushed away with the sound of false laughter echoing out of Duncan’s chest.

“Whatever. Just don’t say you weren’t warned if you catch anything.”

The mood breaks and everyone laughs, loudly and meanly, not bothering to hide the venom or the direction in which they’re looking. Logan sees her shoulders tense and her mouth set.

---

The chicken is moist, he can practically see it weeping as his knife slices the meat, blade piercing and dragging through the fibers, but his mouth is dry and every mouthful chokes him. Unbearable rasping as his teeth grind and his tongue guides each unwieldy mouthful.

He remembers why he tries so hard not to spend time at home.

Like he needs a reminder.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

The chicken is, apparently, not happy enough being hard to swallow, it suddenly needs to become hard to keep down. Logan swallows thickly, trying to stem the flood of bile.

“I didn’t do it, dad, I swear.”

“You swear?” Comes the chuckle, deep and low and chilling. “Then why is your mother getting calls from your school about books? Do you know how much it’s going to cost me? Not only to replace the ones they had to destroy, but to keep this out of your record?”

“I…” His mouth stumbles and he keeps his eyes down firm on his plate. “I didn’t…”

The words run as dry as his mouth.

---

Monday is a wash and he doesn’t get back to school until the Tuesday, seething and angry and looking for blood.

He’s wearing long sleeves and every breath he takes still feels jagged, as if the backs of his ribs are scraping along shards of broken glass. He takes special care to sit on the very front edges of all his chairs, and he makes sure that there’s at least one foot of personal space between him and anyone else, especially those with careless limbs.

It’s only been months, not enough time, not nearly long enough. He needs that familiar face, soft and serene when she wanted it to be, peaceful for him when he needed it. Only she knew how to take one look at him, her eyes tightening slightly at the edges, and keep him docile. Lilly was like his drug for as long as he needed, kept his mind off it, kept his temper in check. His body and his temper haven’t learned to stop looking for her when he’s like this, even if his brain constantly berates him for it.

It’s boiling inside him now, he knows it, and it’s really only a matter of time before something pushes him over the edge. He’s waiting for it, actually, testing the taste of it out on the tips of his teeth, teasing it with fingers clenched open and closed underneath his desk. It won’t take much to push this sliding, slinking feeling out of himself. He needs release. Something, anything, anyone.

Like Veronica fucking Mars smiling at him in the hallway.

She’s so goddamned smug and happy and superior and how dare she fucking smile at him? She thinks she has it bad? She has no goddamned clue what everyone truly lost. Not one.

“Something funny?”

Her eyes are the first to react; he can practically see her defenses slam up, brick by brick as they turn to ice. She recovers well, hitching her bag higher up on her shoulder as she points to the library.

“No. I was just…”

“What’s the matter? All the sports teams finally see the light and stop paying?” It’s weak and not his best effort, but it relieves some of the pressure. “You have to accost the geeks now?”

“Yes, why? Are you…?” Her face slides from curious to overly surprised. “Logan, are you jealous? Because, you know, I’m not due to hit the spoiled rich brat table for another… oh, let me see, never.”

His teeth grind inside his jaw.

“No, no, it’s good you’re moving on.” He goes in for the kill. “I mean, guess you have to, now that Duncan’s hooked up with Shelley again.”

Her eyes widen.

“God, I mean, it’s about time.” He rolls his eyes in mock relief, his shoulders heaving dramatically. “Now we won’t have to hear him moaning on and on about how his last girlfriend was such an ice cold, frigid BITCH, now, will we?”

“Oh, nice.” She’s trying for casual, but he can see the cracks. “Going for originality points, are you?”

He grins, feral and mean.

“Just the truth, Ronnie.” The name grates up and down her spine, he can follow the path of it as she straightens her back, readies herself for a fight. “You might have had him fooled, always acting the innocent, but I never once believed it. I always knew you were easy.”

She steps back and he’s not even sure she knows she’s done it, but he follows, keeping up with her. There’s no use having quarry if he lets it run away.

“Lilly would have laughed.” He’s prepared for the name, but she’s not. Her mouth opens and a little gasp comes out, breathy and hurt. “To see how quickly you went from Mary fucking Sunshine to School Whore.”

They have an audience, he can see them grinning, can hear them quietly nudging each other and urging him on. Veronica shakes her head in disbelief.

“Don’t you dare bring Lilly into…”

“Oh.” He interrupts her, not giving her the chance to breathe. “But she’s already in it. God, do you know how much she used to laugh about you behind your back? You have no clue. You wanna know what she used to say? Do you?”

She doesn’t, but then she really does. He can see it in her eyes.

“She used to say you’d be such a stone cold fish the first time, Duncan should just slip you a few drinks and get it the fuck over with.”

He feels her fist hit his jaw before he even registers that she’s moved. Her face is wide and shocked and there’s something about her eyes, pained and injured and hateful, that stabs him right where it hurts.

“You know what?” She spits it out. “Fuck you, Logan. I hope you rot in hell.”

He watches her turn on her heels and run to the girls’ bathroom. Her books lie in a pile at his feet.

“Bro!” Dick’s voice booms out of the growing sound of audience accolade. “That was awesome.”

He’s too slow to stop the hand slamming down on his back and his breath hisses hard out of his clenched jaw.

“Yeah, whatever.” Logan shrugs Dick off easily. “Bitch had it coming.”

The boys’ bathroom is just a few steps further and he hurtles himself through it, gasping as he clutches the edges of a basin. His ribs slide easily under his flesh now, free and loose and gratified, even as he spits blood into the sink.

Somehow, remembering her eyes, it really doesn’t seem worth it.

---

He sends her a stuffed dog, taking great pains to keep it anonymous.

Two days later he finds the head in his locker.

He keeps it.

---

continue...

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